Gareth Pugh was the Pitti Guest Women's Wear designer in Florence this month where he showcased his designs for an upcoming F-W '11-'12 collection via a short film made in collaboration with Ruth Hogben; the two of them collaborated on an equally stunning and mesmerizing short film for his S-S '11 collection that I blogged about here.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

...and reveling in this jaw-dropping performance of "Collapsing New People" by the legendary Fad Gadget. Although Fad Gadget (Frank Tovey) died in 2002 at the entirely-too-young age of 46 from a heart attack, his music lives on.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Portuguese artist Daniel Gamelas works in resin and bronze to create startling anthropomorphic figures. I love when creatures in art have human bodies and animal heads. There is something satisfying and primal about it...

This is a marvelous and very clever art project by British artist Kyle Bean.

I've owned numbers six, seven and nine (my current iPhone). I must say that the number seven model drove me nuts. It was a Nokia: hard to navigate because the screen menu was indecipherable. But I do love my iPhone.

The end of a black hole’s evolution may be a mind-bending kind of space-time independent of time. A new study proposes a method to tell how far any black hole is from reaching this end state.

Black holes are some of the weirdest things in the universe. They occur when mass is packed into a tiny volume, squished to its ultimate density.

Though observations suggest black holes are prevalent in the universe, scientists still don't really understand what goes on inside them. The equations of general relativity usually used to understand the physics of the universe break down in these cases.

"It is really beyond the physics we know," said Juan Antonio Valiente Kroon, a mathematician at Queen Mary, University of London. "To understand what happens inside a black hole, we need to invent new physics."

Mercifully, the physics for the end state of a black hole is somewhat simpler. A solution to the equations of general relativity was found that produced a situation called "Kerr spacetime." Scientists now think Kerr spacetime is what happens when a black hole has reached its final evolutionary state.

"Mainly the equations of relativity are so complex that for relativistic systems, the only way you can probe these equations is by means of computer," Valiente Kroon told SPACE.com. "Solutions like this Kerr solution are really exceptional. The Kerr solution is one of the few explicitly known solutions to general relativity that have a direct physical meaning."

Kerr spacetime is time-independent, meaning that nothing in Kerr spacetime changes over time. In effect, time stands still. A black hole in such a state is essentially stationary.

"One could say once it has reached this stage, there are no further processes taking place," Valiente Kroon said.

In their new study, Valiente Kroon and Thomas Backdahl, his colleague at Queen Mary, have calculated a formula to determine how close a black hole is to reaching the Kerr state.

This can happen very quickly – even in seconds – depending on the object's mass.

To apply the formula, scientists would examine the region around a black hole called its event horizon. Once mass, or even light, passes within the event horizon of a black hole, it cannot escape the black hole's gravitational clutches.

The researchers think their development could aid scientists who are building computer simulations of black holes and aiming to align them with observations of actual black holes.

Astronomers think most galaxies, including our own Milky Way, host supermassive black holes in their centers. Some researchers suspect that these are actually Kerr black holes.

Valiente Kroon and Backdahl detail their work in the Jan. 19 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

...and totally hypnotized by Active Child's (Pat Grossi) haunting live performance of the song "Wilderness." Wow.
I posted Active Child's fantastical and surreal "I'm In Your Church At Night" video here.

Since Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks just happened, and I have been blogging heavily about the shows, I thought this was a good time for this post. I happened across this short documentary about Scott Schuman, otherwise known as The Sartorialist. He is a New York City-based fashion photographer who travels all over to photograph Fashion Week shows. But his side project is a wonderful look at the man/woman-in-the-street in the cities he visits (Milan, Paris, Tokyo, London, etc.). He stops people --either outside the shows or simply walking somewhere in the city--who have an interesting, highly personal sense of style and takes their portrait to post on his website. Watch the doc and then visit his site (link at bottom). It is surprisingly lyrical, intimate, and engaging.

In 2009, an anthology of Schuman's favorite shots from around the world was published in a book simply entitled THE SARTORIALIST.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Now that I am paying closer attention to Thom Browne, I came across this amazing, evocative video collaboration between Thom Browne and controversial artist Anthony Goicolea whose work I have known and liked for quite a while. It features a heart wrenching song by one of my favorite bands, Sigur Ros, along with clothing from Browne's S-S '07 collection.

I love fashion designers who weave together themes, places, art, culture and make me ask, “What the hell was he/she thinking?” And John Galliano seems to be the king of “what the hell was he thinking.” His shows and collections are always so inspired and inspiring. They are a collage, a pastiche of ideas and thoughts that must represent how Galliano thinks… rapid ideas and connections, references, knowledge and a thirst for… well, for the world itself. Galliano’s world seems stuffed to bursting with amazing people, places, colors, epochs and societies.

And for his Fall-Winter ’11-’12 showing at Paris Fashion Week this week, his thematic references included a risky elan vers dieu… émigrés from the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the stylistic iconography of Rudolph Nureyev. Now, I am not sure exactly what it says about me that I can actually follow that train of thought, but it makes oblique sense to me. Thousands fled the Revolution… and Nureyev fled Russia by defecting to France in 1961. Russian = Russian, fleeing = defecting. The ideas seem linked. It all works. And the change from Rasputin-looking men in huge wool coats, enormous chunky cable-knit hats and matted and snow-covered beards to slim androgynous Nureyev in swinging 60s silhouettes and then in sweaty rehearsals could have been a disaster in anyone else’s hands. But Galliano finds the bravado and grand gesture connecting them and makes fireworks. Topping off the collection is a section of embroidered Russian evening pieces that seem breathtaking.

Thom Browne is a designer I have watched from afar but now I think I need to pay much closer attention. His last few runway shows have been thematic and theatrical spectacles—just how I like them. And his Fall-Winter collection for ’11-’12, shown at Paris Fashion Week, was a spectacle indeed. Not a traditional runway show at all, the models were seated at a fifty foot long gilded dining table in the grand ballroom of the Westin Hotel on Place Vendome in Paris. After waiters in grey jackets and mohair aprons brought out platters of turkeys, the show began. Sections of seated models then got up to take a turn, slowly, around the table, parading their coats and trains. With silhouettes and pieces of clothing reminiscent of France in the 1700s (cream colored cable knit caps turn into facsimiles for the classic white powdered wig!)as well as the 1800s, crossed with a certain modern sense of Edwardian England, the clothing was a dizzying mix of eras and cultures.

Long Ngyung, co-founder and style director of FLAUNT writes of Thom Browne for Fashionista.com:
"Since he started making suits in 2001, Mr. Browne has pushed the boundary of men’s fashion first by altering the basic proportion of structure and fit–his extra small-looking suits–then by toying with the nature of defined gender garments, often mixing the elements considered basic to womenswear–like ball-gowns and tulle–into his clothes. In a sense, his shows make us realize how limited we are in our thinking about fashion. Even if he hasn’t liberated men from these limitations, he has managed an on-going discourse."

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I still miss McQueen terribly, but I am glad the house goes on; Sarah Burton seems to be skillfully channeling the tone and direction of McQueen's spirit. And this week in Milan for Men's Fashion Week, she showed us a wonderfully evocative Fall-Winter '11-'12 collection based on antique military silhouettes and influences. I know Lee was a great devotee of a certain British sensibility, and Burton has shown a fondness for this style as well with her first menswear collection for McQueen (the marvelous "Pomp and Circumstance" Spring-Summer '11 collection which I blogged about here), but this current collection sure feels a bit Russian to me as well as British. I see ANNA KARENINA swirling around in the regimented jackets and coats. Sashes, referencing an old style military honor or military parade dress, appear here and there. But gold braiding on zip-front jackets, slashed sleeve seams, and track suit pants place the collection in the twenty first century.

About Me

About "Oh, By The Way"

"Oh, By The Way" is my digital scrap book of things I like, things I would share with a close friend and say: “Oh, by the way, do you know of this artist/ clothing or interior designer/ model/ singer/ actor/ gorgeous man… or, have you seen this video/ photo/ film... or heard (or do you remember) this song/ band... or, read this book/ poem/ inspiring quote... or, visited this place/ restaurant/ famous building... or, have you heard of this amazing new scientific discovery?”

I am dedicated to posting the positive, the fascinating, the beautiful, the interesting, the moving, and the inspiring and uplifting. Sometimes I post cultural as well as personal observations, milestones, and remembrances. And just like life, all of these things may often have a bit of melancholy or even sadness in them, which is what makes our time here so lovely and bittersweet and precious.

Some of the photos, art, poetry, and prose are my own original work, credited with my initials, JEF. When it isn't, I always try to post links to the original source material, but often I find photos on the web that are not linked or other material that is not sourced. In these instances, I post them without malice since it is assumed that such things, by being globally posted on something as uncontrollable as the internet to begin with, are in the public domain. If you identify the source of an image that is not linked, please politely let me know (without accusing me of theft) and I will be happy to provide a link.

I hope to inspire and entertain my readers with things that inspire and entertain me. There is a startling amount of beauty and creativity in the world and it enriches us all to participate in it.

All-time Favorite Films

2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)

After Hours (Hysterical, hair-raising ride through NYC at night)

Amelie

American Beauty (Alan Ball)

Baraka (Stunning, transcending—the "spiritus mundi" on film)

Belle et Bete (Cocteau)

Big Sleep, The (The epitome of film noir)

Bringing Up Baby (Hepburn & Grant—the epitome of screwball comedy)

Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, The (Greenaway)

Crash (Cronenberg—DIFFICULT subject, not for everyone)

Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg—ultimate modern gothic horror)

Drowning By Numbers (Greenaway)

Easy Rider

Edward II (Derek Jarman)

Erendira (From magic realist Marquez’ brilliant short story)

Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick's last film)

Fearless (Jeff Bridges—life and death)

Funny Bones (Leslie Caron, Jerry Lewis, and the brilliant Lee Evans)

Holiday (Hepburn & Grant)

Howard’s End (The ultimate statement of the unfairness of class systems)